News UK and DMG Media’s joint venture to combine their printing operations has been given the green light by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), concluding the supply of services to third parties would not be adversely affected                                                                                          

The CMA concluded that the printing operations of the two publishers were not particularly close competitors for third-party customers. Geography and spare capacity—as we have long argued—were far more influential factors                                                                                          

The CMA’s green light is a timely reminder of the importance of industry collaboration for the profitability of the news industry’s print era, with useful indicators for the evolving online market

Vodafone has confirmed that it is in discussions to sell its Italian business to Swisscom for €8bn having rebuffed a higher offer from Iliad for an Italian JV in December.

The Spanish and Italian deals should be reassuring to investors, are helpful to the growth profile of the company, and may help to reduce any conglomerate discount in the share price.

The all-important free cashflow impact of the deals remains to be seen with potential for buybacks of up to €10bn compensating for the direct dilution of the deals and softening the blow of any dividend downgrade in May.

Sony PlayStation’s next CEO will have hard decisions to make: compete against a resurgent multiplatform Microsoft, or retreat and defend an increasingly rickety PlayStation console model.

New gaming hardware will have an outsize influence in the year ahead, giving gamers unprecedented choice, starting with XR headsets and continuing to a likely new Nintendo Switch.

YouTube’s foray into browser-based games will be the service to watch in 2024. If successful, streaming services, including Netflix, will be on track to become heavyweight game platforms.

Dramas from the public service broadcasters based on books consistently bring in bigger audiences than those that are not, a trend driven by certain genres, especially detective mysteries and thrillers.

A greater volume of newer book IP is being developed into programming, but this preference is not necessarily reflected in audience figures.                                 

Younger demographics are less enamoured with dramas based on books than older viewers. There are however notable exceptions, while attracting younger audiences may have more to do with the age, genre, and fame of the IP.